Great work/life balance, but not much opportunity to advance
Pros
Great work/life balance. Although they pay overtime (equivalent hourly rate from your annual salary + $6.50/hour), they don't authorize OT unless it's critical. They try to have you work no more than 80 hours in a two-week pay period. I often ended up working 9 days out of 10 day pay period.
Cons
Everybody pretty much gets an annual raise of about 2%. If you had an exceptional performance review, maybe 2.5%. That's where the problem is. There is no motivation to work harder for an extra 0.5%. There are 5 levels and a lot of people are stuck on level 3. It's very difficult to get level 4, and level 5's are even fewer. Most level 4's and 5's are jaded older folks in their 50's, with nothing much to offer but stories of "back in the day"/"how it used to be", yet they pull in over $100k while you toil for $70-75k after 7-8 years with the company. I'd say the majority of the people are stuck at level 3 with no hope of advancement/significant bump in pay. You just rotate around every couple of years or so and get your annual 2%. Zero incentive to excel, so many just do the minimum or the ambitious ones leave after 3-4 years.
